Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

The first paperback edition of the popular primary source reader, including many newly released documents

“In this age of high technology weapons, crisis-management is dangerous, difficult, and uncertain. . . . The record of the missile crisis is replete with examples of misinformation, misjudgment, miscalculation. Such errors are costly in conventional warfare. When they affect decisions relating to nuclear forces, they can result in the destruction of nations.” —from the foreword by Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis

Thirty-six years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, these declassified documents stand as testament to just how dangerously close the world came to nuclear destruction in 1962, and challenge the official history of the event as a model of crisis management. This collection of formerly secret records includes correspondence between John F. Kennedy, Nikita Krushchev, and Fidel Castro; intelligence reports; minutes; cables; and new documents released since the publication of the hardcover. The editors have provided a document-by-document account of the most important superpower confrontation of the twentieth century.